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Associated Press
26-03-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Kentucky Governor Vetoes Gold Bill, Legislature Expected to Override
FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY / ACCESS Newswire / March 26, 2025 / Slapping smalltime savers in the face for the second time in 12 months, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has again vetoed a bill that would end sales taxes on purchases of precious metals. House Bill 2, introduced by Rep. TJ Roberts, enjoyed overwhelming support in both chambers of the state legislature. Gov. Beshear's veto sets up a showdown a year in the making between the legislature and the state's top official. Last year, Gov. Beshear purported to exercise a line-item veto of a gold and silver sales tax exemption that had been included in a 2024 revenue bill. At the time, he sneered at Kentucky smalltime savers and investors, saying, 'if you own gold, you can afford to pay sales tax.' At the time, the legislature deemed Beshear's line veto invalid and directed that the provision be formally codified by the Revisor of Statutes (which did so). State Attorney General Russell Coleman declared the governor's veto invalid in a detailed analysis that explained the line-item veto power only exists in the Kentucky constitution with respect to appropriations bills, which the bill at hand was not. Ignoring the state constitution and findings by the state's top lawyer, though, the governor nevertheless directed the Kentucky Department of Revenue to continue collecting sales taxes on gold and silver purchases, threatening Kentucky businesses, savers, and investors with legal action if they did not pay. That's why Roberts, a freshman legislator, introduced his House Bill 2 in January 2025, and the bill passed the state house by an overwhelming 76-17 and the state senate by another overwhelming vote of 30-6. HB 2 also provides a mechanism for victimized Kentucky citizens to reclaim their unconstitutionally seized sales taxes on any gold or silver purchases since last summer. The bill reads, 'any aggrieved taxpayer who has had taxes collected from them in any purchase that are exempt under KRS 139.480(37), may maintain an action for a refund on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated, without need to resort to any administrative process, against any person collecting or holding such tax funds, including the Secretary of the Finance and Administration Cabinet and the Commissioner of the Department of Revenue.' In an interview with the Sound Money Defense League, lead sponsor Rep. Roberts noted, 'Gov. Beshear's veto is disappointing but in-line with his tyrant tendencies. This governor is fighting tooth and nail to keep violating the U.S. Constitution as it regards gold and silver,' The liberty-minded policymaker continued, 'Last year, we repealed the gold and silver sales tax, but Andy Beshear persistently stood in the way of the will of the people. This year, I will make sure the legislature fulfills the will of the people of Kentucky.' If the legislature overrides the governor's veto as expected and HB 2 becomes law, taxpayers will be entitled to reimbursement of their attorney's fees and legal costs as well whilst seeking recovery of back taxes. The state's GOP supermajority is expected to reconvene March 27th and 28th to override any of Gov. Beshear's vetoes. 208-258-2528
The Guardian
22-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Figures in Extinction review – Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney's impassioned response to the climate crisis
One of Crystal Pite's most distinctive qualities as a choreographer is her willingness to grapple with the society around her, to craft works that engage with the issues of our time – bureaucratic bungling (Revisor), global diplomacy (The Statement), mass migration (Light of Passage). Theatre guru Simon McBurney of the groundbreaking Complicité has a similar belief in the power of art to change the world. Together over the past four years, with the exceptional dancers of Nederlands Dans Theater, they have forged Figures in Extinction – a work of serious thought, urgent entreaty and utterly sumptuous dance around the questions of human-made climate change and its effect on the planet. The evening-long show is made of three separate works, and it was the third that received its premiere last week at Aviva Studios, home of Factory International. Pite led the creation of the first, McBurney the second, and the third is credited as an equal partnership. But as a whole, the piece has extraordinary sweep and coherence. Each begins with all the dancers on stage and a question being asked. Images run from one to the other – the skeleton of a cheetah and the pinioned movements of a frog seen in the first section return in the last. The effect is one of cumulative richness forged from separate ingredients. Figures in Extinction [1.0] the list is a mournful litany of lost nature. Pite creates an encyclopedia of haunting pictures, suggestive of the creatures that are extinct but not mimicking them. In conjuring lost animals through human bodies, the work generates exactly the state of empathy its soundtrack pleads for. The second part, [2.0] but then you come to the humans, starts with a phalanx of suited dancers in suits on chairs, transfixed by their phones as urgent events unfold around them. As it develops, the movement embodies the dense arguments unfolding on the voiceover, about the left and right brain and the ways in which we have created a society that – quoting Einstein – 'honours the servant' by promoting the rational mind over the intuitive, 'a sacred gift'. Finally, [3.0] requiem explores ideas of death and time, the relationship between the living and the dead, and the faint hope that springs from the continuity of both. With music that ranges from Mozart and Fauré to Schnittke and Ice Spice, and scenes around a hospital bed where relatives lip-sync their grief over the dying while shadowy dancers seem to represent the dead, this section is the most diffuse of the three. Yet it is astonishingly moving in its willingness to grapple with the philosophical notions of extinction, on both a personal and a planetary level. Pite creates choreography that seems to stretch the dancers to their limits, their bodies so expressive, so impassioned, as they form into tableaux and patterns, that at one moment look like Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa and at the next like a medical documentary. Group movement breaks into solos and aching duets and finally resolves into stillness. It's textured, varied, utterly beautiful. In each section, Tom Visser's astonishing lighting, which constantly switches and highlights mood, Owen Belton and Benjamin Grant's compositions and sound designs, which blend classical melody with the sound of the street, and Jay Gower Taylor's fluid, evocative design all add to the weight and power of the trilogy. It's a towering achievement – a challenge to do more, think more and feel more. Figures in Extinction is at Aviva Studios, Manchester until 22 February
